杏吧原创

THERE should be a special word for the feeling of dread caused by reading
the works of macroeconomists. As the pages turn, you gradually realise that you
are merely the tiniest of tiny cogs in a global machine with no one at its helm,
and that your culture, your life and even your own private beliefs are products
of economic forces that you cannot comprehend.

Whatever the word for this feeling, the OECD鈥檚 recent report on technology,
productivity and job creation certainly engenders an excess of it. The report is
a no doubt excellent survey of means to 鈥渂oost productivity and growth through
increased knowledge-intensive economic activities while maintaining social
cohesion鈥�. Its conclusions are, in the main, unexceptional: that new technology
creates more jobs than it destroys (although the jobs may be somewhere else) and
basic research is essential to keep the new technology coming.

The sense of dread is, like the devil, in the detail. Trust turns out not to
be 鈥渢rust鈥� as we normally know it but 鈥渁n important asset for economic
effectiveness鈥� because it allows workers to accept organisational change more
rapidly. Even the cosy word 鈥渓eisure鈥� takes on a sinister tone. The problem is
that technological change is partly seen as a force that will create more
鈥渓eisure鈥� while at the same time it is creating a society in which people are
fearful of 鈥渓eisure鈥� because their identity is more and more defined by having a
job. A possible answer is to 鈥渞ehabilitate leisure in terms of voluntary work鈥�.
Does being unemployed then equal having a voluntary job?

Perhaps it鈥檚 time for deep ecology and the rejection of materialism.
Meanwhile, what would be an ideal word for the feeling that you are nothing more
than a tiny ant in the economic hive?